Friday, April 18, 2008

A couple of nights ago, I was going through my usual bedtime routine with Kate, which includes reading, talking about the day and singing a few songs, when an unexpected and lovely thing happened: I experienced a fleeting flashback to a time when I was about 13 years old, and a quick return to the sweet present moment, and suddenly I became filled with emotion because of what was occurring. I brought a song that I knew and loved in the past into my present life as a mother, and my sweet, beautiful, and precocious not-quite-two-year-old daughter started singing it with me.

I usually sing one or two songs from The Sound Of Music to Kate at night, because it is a movie that I really liked as a young girl, whose songs have stuck with me into adulthood. Those songs are now regularly being reinforced since I introduced portions (age appropriate, of course) of the movie to Kate. Edelweiss is one of the songs I regularly sing to her. I like it simply because it sounds pretty and it's a nice length for a lullaby. So I began to sing it (for the umpteenth time in the last six months), and Kate, who was not very sleepy, chimed in. She sang the entire song with me. (Did I mention that she's not even two years old?)

While the two of us were singing inharmoniously (but at the same time, perfectly) together,I remembered back to being a nervous 13-year-old girl singing Edelweiss for a summer music camp audition. I found it incredible to think about that 13-year-old girl singing a song she loved, not knowing that in twenty- plus years she'd be singing it as a lullaby to her amazing daughter. I was looking down at my little miracle and was overcome with joy and love as I listened to, and watched her sing that song with me. She is my little edelweiss - so clean and bright. May she bloom and grow forever.